Bengaluru saw a 15-fold jump in net office leasing during the quarter due to many large leasing transaction from corporates as well as low base effect, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield said on Saturday that the net leasing of office space stood at 18.63 million sq ft during the October-December period across major eight cities as against 9.06 million sq ft in the year-ago period.

The Bengaluru office market achieved the highest volume and also maximum surge in percentage term during the current quarter of this calendar year.

The net office leasing or absorption in Bengaluru jumped to 80,50,266 sq ft during October-December from 5,18,622 sq ft in the year-ago period.

"Many large deals that were under negotiation in the previous quarters, but occupiers were adopting a cautious approach and delaying, have sailed through in Q4. As a result, fresh leasing of space jumped," the consultant said, explaining the sharp jump in office demand in Bengaluru.

Besides, it said the "last quarter of 2022 was a low base owing to higher caution exercised by global occupiers as fears of US recession and rising inflation were high and impacted market sentiment negatively in Q4-22".

As per the data, the leasing in Mumbai declined 9 per cent to 22,46,920 sq ft from 24,72,259 sq ft.

The demand in Delhi-NCR, too, fell 37 per cent to 16,25,514 sq ft from 25,61,752 sq ft.

In Chennai, the leasing was up 37 per cent to 14,48,595 sq ft from 10,59,307 sq ft.

Pune saw a 58 per cent growth in leasing to 1,898,143 sq ft from 11,97,733 sq ft.

Leasing activities in Hyderabad jumped more than 3 times to 26,18,424 sq ft from 7,88,624 sq ft.

In Kolkata, the demand grew nearly 2 per cent to 257,700 sq ft from 253,737 sq ft.

Net leasing of office space in Ahmedabad more than doubled to 4,92,795 sq ft during the fourth quarter this year from 2,10,010 sq ft in the year-ago period.

Anshul Jain, Managing Director, India & South East Asia, at Cushman & Wakefield, said, "We have always maintained that the fundamentals of India's office market are strong." "While we anticipated a healthy performance this year despite global headwinds and economic uncertainties, Q4 and the entire 2023 have exceeded even our most optimistic projections and turned out to be the best one ever," Jain said.

A turnaround in the economic growth outlook for India in Q4, coupled with resilience seen in the global economy, could be a factor for fence-sitting occupiers to move ahead swiftly, Jain said.